Ocean Feedback Thread

[Yuuko]

23 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

To be honest they could probably reduce the crafting costs of boat kits down to 8 logs, masts down to 4 silk, Anchors 1 Cutstone & they would still be mostly fine aside from the above mentioned: Most the resources to build said boats only existing mostly on the main large land.

 

They did tinker with this in one of the betas.  They changed the boat cost to be just 8 logs, which also made it not require a science machine to build.  This was great for getting out on the water quicker, but it had a few complications - namely that you don't get more logs while you're out at sea.  The sea debris gives you boards, so it was kinda an anti-synergy.  They instead made the grass boat version HOWEVER

This doesn't answer your issue, which is a good issue.  I think we need to have boats made from materials you can find while boating.  We do find *some* grass and twigs while boating, but not nearly enough.  We can find a decent amount of drift wood though.  I think a drift wood raft that is more permanent like the wood boat, but is smaller like the grass one would work well.

Also I posted about it, but I'll say it again - they need to reconsider the materials we get out at sea and what we need while out at sea.  Boat patches require logs and stingers, both things you don't get out at sea.  Tree jam requires glommer gloop too.  They should probably change this so there is either water bees you can get stingers from, or re-consider bee stingers as a requirement - maybe bone shards would be better?  You can get bone shards from letting any fish spoil.  And as for logs requirement - we get boards from hammering debris, I think they could move back to boards okay OR they could have the debris randomly give you boards or logs (or even other loot, like rocks - something we ALSO don't get at sea very much, yet is required for the hammer)

Anyway more like that ^ basically closing the loop so sailing is more self sustaining.

I'm with you on that - I really liked ship wrecked, and Wilani was my fav forever just to go surfing waves not even playing the game lol.  I do like how boating is done in DST but it really needs the support required for us to live that way.  I started playing with a mod that generates an archipelago world and it makes boating a lot more fun just to change the world this way, but that doesn't fix these other issues.

[Vinja]

On 5/15/2023 at 5:59 AM, Dextops said:

Hot take: I think the ocean is pretty unfinished and bad

More like lukewarm take lol

[Mike23Ua]

25 minutes ago, goodguythatguy said:

A Casino would give me even more reason to stay away from the Ocean. Might as well throw in a Monkey Strip Club.
Maybe Klei can do a crossover with Leisure Suit Larry and really take the degeneracy to a whole new level with a 'Leisure Suit Wilson' game. 

Your against the addition of a Casino, but.. let me play devils advocate here- What if you could gather sunken treasure chests out at sea and then take said treasure chests (without opening them..) to Moon Quay Island to exchange with the Monkey Pirates, giving them treasures earns their favor & they will let you traverse through their waters without too many raid attempts (but they’re still lying dirty pirates so your not getting full pardon) Giving Treasures to the Moon Quay Queen instead of rewarding the player Blueprints rewards something similar to Hamlets Onic Coins OR Shipwreckeds Golden Doubloons.

These “Coins” are a form of Currency much like the Midsummers Cawnival Tokens used to play the carnival mini games.

The coins can be traded with monkey pirates to hire them as ship crew, get them to leave you alone if they attempt a raid, Yarctopus could be added trading Pirate coins to him could be like trading trinkets to Pig King, He could reward the player with Ocean Content stuffs such as Boat Kits, already Masts, Boat upgrades, Food that’s good for prolonged ocean adventures etc..

Also since I’ve been playing a lot Spelunky 2- I admire the idea of spending these pirate doubloons in a gambling Mini-Game for a chance to obtain rewards, basically it’s the above Casino idea you hate so much.. but if the luck of a scary season be on ye side you could obtain fantastic loots from, such as an Eyebrella, Strident Trident or something of that nature. It can be identical to Spelunky 2’s gambling game where you pick up two dice and throw them trying to roll numbers for rewards (the game has a dice roll feature after all why not use it??) 

Rewards can be something amazing like above, decent, or absolutely awful and not good depending on your role of the pirates dice.

I picture in my head a Yarctopus saying “Dare to Try Ye luck in me game of chance?” When you roll good rewards, he curses you out and says something like “I’ve had it up to me barnacles with you mate be gone from here while luck still be on your side!” OR if you roll bad- He could let out an evil laugh and summon a shark or something to attempt to attack you.

You can “Gamble” with your luck by using the pirate doubloons you obtain from taking treasure chests to pirate island.

It feels like A proper upgrade to Moon Quay.. 

Sure it’s a concept ripped straight out of Spelunky 2… but it would be fun to see just how lucky or unlucky I can be with my pirate dice.

 

[Mysterious box]

12 hours ago, Dreadle said:

Treasure hunting is disappointing and lacks sufficient rewards compare to the time and effort invested. Despite ocean travel requiring the same time and skills as ruin clearing, the loot obtained from treasure hunting is abysmal little. This, coupled with the empty space, and slow travel speed of boats and sea stacks in the ocean, results in a significant time investment to reach sunken chests. It often takes players 3-5 days just to reach a single sunken chest, and that's without considering the additional time required to stop and pick up bottles along the way. Players are lucky to fetch just 5 sunken chests per season, and there is still no guarantee of finding anything valuable inside. The usable loot with actual worth keeping in a sunken chest, often has a low 10% drop rate. This means that even after spending an entire season searching for sunken chests, the majority of the loot obtained is absolute trash. And my grievance: why the golden pickaxe drop rate is 50%? Treasure hunting but all I can see is golden pickaxes. 

Completely agree here in the past I've tried hunting sunken treasures as efficiently as possible and more or less came to the same conclusion.

[goodguythatguy]

16 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Your against the addition of a Casino, but..

 

I wouldn't say I'm against the addition of a Casino. If it's got what gamers crave, I don't want to prevent them from getting that.
I have a bias against gambling in general. If there was a hell, I imagine it looking something like a Casino combined with a Prison. Which is basically what a Casino in the middle of the Ocean sounds like to me. 
That being said, I realize Casinos are popular, people swarm to them, so it could be a great addition to the game and enjoyed by more people than not. I might be the minority, it wouldn't be the first time.
There was a Casino in Final Fantasy 7. I remember there being Chocobo Races and whatnot. 
 

[Mysterious box]

On 5/15/2023 at 7:37 AM, Mike23Ua said:

Things like WaterLogged feel far too tiny to be really spectacular, if the biome was about 4 times it’s size and I needed to carefully waddle through it avoiding striders and grass gators it would feel a lot more unique I think.

Feel like all the existing ocean biomes should be 4 times their current sizes. Perhaps even making corrupted lunar fish monsters near the lunar island.

Also I feel like the replantables should require a task to complete to take them from their native islands in order to give more incentive to engage with the islands longer. A large part of ocean content to me is how grab and go it is.

On 5/15/2023 at 7:37 AM, Mike23Ua said:

SeaStacks, hate them.. they can be removed from the game tomorrow and I won’t miss them.

Willing to bet this change would greatly increase the amount of people who would at least attempt sailing.

 

For me personally the ocean is just too empty and lifeless in it's current state 

[Mike23Ua]

30 minutes ago, goodguythatguy said:

I wouldn't say I'm against the addition of a Casino. If it's got what gamers crave, I don't want to prevent them from getting that.
I have a bias against gambling in general. If there was a hell, I imagine it looking something like a Casino combined with a Prison. Which is basically what a Casino in the middle of the Ocean sounds like to me. 
That being said, I realize Casinos are popular, people swarm to them, so it could be a great addition to the game and enjoyed by more people than not. I might be the minority, it wouldn't be the first time.
There was a Casino in Final Fantasy 7. I remember there being Chocobo Races and whatnot. 
 

I was a massive and I mean super massive fan of pirates as a child, like even before pirates of the Caribbean was ever a thing: I had fisher price pirate boats with a whole bunch of accessories and fun pirate stuff. I was obsessed with their clothing, their ships, their ways of living.. & I feel it’s important that I mention that pirates (among being lying thief's) also spent a large majority of their time gambling.

No.. they didn’t have fancy Casinos with slot machines & roulette wheels in them and all that modern day stuff, but they did have cards, dice & coins, they arm wrestled, they rolled dice, they played games of chance. 

the closest DST comes to any of this is Midsummers Cawnival, you can build a carnival attraction to Fire projectiles at metal birds, this isn’t too far removed from pirates lining up empty bottles and throwing throwing knives at them to see what they hit/miss.

I only mentioned the above pirates dice suggestion because the game has a dice roll feature, which while currently I think is only used in multiplayer to decide who gets the loot from boss drops- it would be soooo cool if this could be updated though so your character actually does an animation of throwing dice to roll a number, THEN Klei could rip the mini-game straight out of Spelunky 2 and put it into DST.

Here is a photo of that mini-game:

In this game you just pick these up and you throw them, and if it lands on the number ranges posted on the poster behind him you get a good, bad or mediocre reward.

Technically: you can build a midsummers Cawnival tree out in the water on an island somewhere and set up your own sort of mini-games/currency exchange.

But it doesn’t sound as awesome as taking sunken treasures to monkey pirate island to get pirate coins to take to another pirate (Yarctopus) to play games of chance & gamble for rewards.

[ShadowDuelist]

Ocean changes I'd focus on ASAP:

Spoiler

1. Make the mainland medium sized by default, give more space for ocean things.
2. Add a way to teleport your boat from one point of the ocean to the other, sort of like shipwrecked's https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Electric_Isosceles or the corner of the world's fog (or both). DST currently has a small waterfall at the edges of the world, perhaps it may play a little animation that we fall from it and appear on another side of the map, or the claw that exists on the game files takes us.
3. Remove sea stacks from most of the ocean, replace them with small islands and ocean currents, and/or waves. Sea stacks should be a nuisance at some specific tiny areas, or around crab king, but not throughout all the ocean.
4. Improve the loot table of sunken chests quite a bunch, so it's far more profitable to search for them, specially in the early game. High risk, high reward thing. Perhaps to compensate, when arriving it should be protected by a random ocean mob (EG: 3 sharks) or pirates.
5.  Once you've gained enough trust of pearl (perhaps after you finished her house, for example) you should be able to buy information about ocean landmarks from her, with the only exception of Crab king's location. There is already a questline mechanic for that, and its meaningful for the lore that she doesn't know where he is.
6. Beef the cookie cutter cap to have 80% damage resistance.
7. This is more like a small detail but shouldn't the edges of the map (where the land meets the sea) look more like Shipwrecked's beaches? Currently the edges look very un-natural and un-inviting, if you don't know much about the game.

 

Changes I'd love about the ocean monkeys and their island:

Spoiler

1. Do now allow more cursed trinkets attach to you if you already hold a full stack of them. Losing one inventory space is probably penalty enough.
2. The cursed trinkets that remain on the ground or floating at the sea for more than X days should disappear. My suggestion would be 2-3 days, but I'd leave Klei to decide that. Maybe birds that land should get them stuck slowly.
3. Pirate monkeys should become better equipped over time, maybe even having cannon boats themselves
4. Pirate monkeys shouldn't only attack you. They need a more organic feeling, like finding them just roaming an area and attack you if you get too close to them, and we should see neutral monkeys carrying sunken chests that they found on their own, and they try to avoid you at all costs. It would be up for the player to attempt to steal from them or not.
5. Pirate monkeys should always be neutral towards a boat that carries at least one Wonkey player (unless you attack or try to steal from them)
6. The moon-quay queen should allow temporary alliances with banana-based foods, so her pirates become neutral to you, and become an interesting trader. She should accept ,weapons, gunpowder, boards, and other things of pirate interest, for healing items, higher tier foods, gems, etc.

 

About making Wonkey a slightly more interesting game mechanic:

Spoiler

1. Wonkey should get a few more trades from the monkey queen. They don't have to be incredibly game changing, but just for the flavor of choosing to play the "pirate" class.
2. Wonkey should be slightly better at some ocean related stuff: Repairing boats, fishing, seeing further while on a boat, getting a smaller hunger drain when on a boat.
3. Wonkey should retain a diminished version of a minor perk from the original character that created it, making the base character change Wonkey a bit:
   Examples I can think of: Wigfrid that turns to Wonkey will be 10% more resistant to damage. Wolfgang that turns to Wonkey can wear a piggyback and carry heavy objects (statues and such) with no speed penalty. Wes that turns to Wonkey can still craft balloon vests and hats. Wilson that becomes Wonkey will retain a few alchemical formulas. Etc.

 

[Mysterious box]

On 4/22/2023 at 3:29 AM, Mysterious box said:

Them stealing your stuff on attack was fine and more good to stay and them destroying your mast to prevent you pursuing them when they try to escape was also fine but here's where things should have changed:

1. Their boats should never have been as fast or faster than ours making fleeing a good option if we felt we had no chance of success and were confident in our boating skills.

2. The act of them destroying masts should have been inefficient by that I mean they should have had a massive windup to destroy your sail and should have been very interruptible when doing so making it actually your own fault when they managed to destroy a mast.

3. Giving them a banana, failing a raid, and successfully killing a raid should have placed a cooldown on their spawn with failing being the shortest, followed by giving a banana then finally the longest being actually killing them all. Also in the event of bribing them with a banana stolen loot in the current raid should have been dropped as should their attempts to destroy things on your boat.6.

4. There should have been additional outposts throughout the sea where you could trade bananas to get rid of cursed trinkets as well as more locations at sea where bananas spawned from even if only moon quay gave access to relocatable ones.

5. Cursed trinkets should never have had a 100% drop rate and should have been closer to 30-50% potentially even lower.

6. The pirates should have been afraid of ocean boss monsters fleeing at the sight of them.

7. The pirate raids should have been expanded to cover the entire ocean.

My thoughts on pirate raids more or less hasn't changed.

[YouKnowWho]

14 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

This is more like a small detail but shouldn't the edges of the map (where the land meets the sea) look more like Shipwrecked's beaches? Currently the edges look very un-natural and un-inviting, if you don't know much about the game.

here's my counterargument to those who think this wouldn't work in the context of the lore

[Pet Rock]

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Do now allow more cursed trinkets attach to you if you already hold a full stack of them.

This would be more of a nuisance then a help, considering players would have to take multiple trips to the island to get rid of all of them.

 

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Maybe birds that land should get them stuck slowly.

 

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

They need a more organic feeling, like finding them just roaming an area and attack you if you get too close to them, and we should see neutral monkeys carrying sunken chests that they found on their own, and they try to avoid you at all costs.

Love these ideas! I'm always for more immersive game mechanics

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Make the mainland medium sized by default, give more space for ocean things.

There's not enough content on the ocean to justify this decision, but having a way directly through the mainland with a boat would be great.

[Hornete]

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

This is more like a small detail but shouldn't the edges of the map (where the land meets the sea) look more like Shipwrecked's beaches? Currently the edges look very un-natural and un-inviting, if you don't know much about the game.

I get what you mean, I've always thought it'd be fun if there was a slight elevation change between land and sea, though that would be a inplausible hellish thing to implement, fun to think about though!

Spoiler

 

Personally I think it'd be nice if specific turfs/lands had the shipwrecked water over land look. Having a combination of both would be really fun me-thinks.

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Changes I'd love about the ocean monkeys and their island:

Don't forget, revert the cap on the stash mechanic! Your other ideas are really fun though. Something I and some friends would love to see if is there were proper roles for certain monkeys on a raid that vary up the fights while giving you unique advantages to play around with. Alas, maybe some day.

Oh, and also, fleeing raids should go in the direction of their island! >:)

[ShadowDuelist]

2 hours ago, Hornete said:

Oh, and also, fleeing raids should go in the direction of their island! >:)

During the Moon-quay beta I proposed that a way to find the island could be that you hide among them as a stowaway. I hid in their boat with a snurtle shell by coincidence (A bush hat works too) and despite being hilarious to do so, after many tries I realized that their pathfinding is extremely stupid and probably beyond repair.
It also made me think that it would probably be technically a nightmare to program boats that know their way home. 

I can think of 2 workarounds around this though:
 

• The complicated way would be that the ocean has very few sea stacks, and some pirate boats have a very specific patrol pattern that always ends up on the island. The bad side of this is that probably disturbing their pattern with anything (either the player directly or just the constant's happenings interacting with them) would make them very prone to them getting stuck somewhere, and crashing against the land, or just getting lost. It would probably require a bunch of programming time to teach them to always resume their patrol route.
• The easy way would probably be that once you stay "hidden" in their boat and they've been trying to escape for more than X seconds, all the players "hidden" on that boat will fade to black and wash ashore on the mon-quay island.

Regardless how it's made, I still giggle a bit every time I'm hidden among them and I'd love others to experience that too.

[Baark0]

First thing I did when I found moon quay was bomb all the docks so the only monkeys that can spawn are from the portal and the raids. Moon quay needs a handful of changes to not suck, but the most important one would be the removal of trinkets from monkey raiders. The current iteration of raids are something that should be a punishment, a choice the player has to make because they've made a mistake (that choice being kill the monkeys and get cursed or do nothing and let them break and raid your ship), yet the monkeys attack you without you having any input. It's a forced punishment for no reason whatsoever. The fact this made it to the beta, let alone live servers is astonishing to me, and is a prime example of bad an unfun game design.

I actually like sea stacks, if it weren't for them sailing the ocean would be even more mind numbingly boring than it is now. Could you imagine if all there was to do was stare blankly at the screen/map? Sea stacks keep you on your toes, I only wish I could relocate them so I could farm barnacles closer to my base.

Malbatross breaking your sails is the only real problem I have with the boss, especially since it can spawn without any player input and choose to dash across your boat. More uses for it's feathers would be nice, maybe the watering can made with it's bill could water more efficiently, only taking 2 or 3 waters to full water the farmland.

Rockjaws need to have a larger window of vulnerability, trying to kill them is such a pain just because of how little time you have to hit them, which is further amplified by the fact they perform a random number of attacks, so your reaction to them stopping to attack will almost always be delayed compared to any other enemy in the game. It also doesn't help that they tend to de-aggro from players at seemingly random which just leave you feeling like you wasted your time, equipment, and healing for no payoff.

While I personally don't mind it, the waterlogged trees leaf overlay at the top of the screen should really have an option to disable it. 

Cannons and rudders should be actually good.

Crab king needs a complete rework, his gem effects all need heavy nerfs, and there needs to be more downtime in between attacks. I get he's meant to be a raid boss, but even with multiple people this fight is still a nightmare. He has such a cool concept of a "build your boss fight" yet it's completely squandered by the fact that the only realistically possible way to kill him is to cancel most his attacks with ice staves, or just bees/striders to do it for you.

Strident trident should also have a socket for a gem, and should gain additional properties based on what gem is inserted.

[ShadowDuelist]

18 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

I actually like sea stacks, if it weren't for them sailing the ocean would be even more mind numbingly boring than it is now. Could you imagine if all there was to do was stare blankly at the screen/map? Sea stacks keep you on your toes,

I mean, removing them altogether can be done and tested right now in the worldgen settings, you can set them to "none" and the ocean becomes dull and boring just as you mention.
I think what most people would like is that they are replaced by other more interesting things. It would seem that they were added everywhere as placeholders for future content, but that future content never happened yet, so its all just sea stacks.

[Mr Giggio]

I just need some type of tricks in the ocean to speed up the exploration or getting in certain locals like that wand from shipwrecked or ocean currents, whirpools whatever ANYTHING even buffin malbatross spawn rate, 10% from fishing can take forever and without the beak it gets so painfull

[Antynomity]

It's really nice to see so much activity in this thread, clearly one was needed if so many different people have their own feedback and ideas on how they would improve the ocean so I'll step in myself now and say what my problems with the oceans are:

The ocean feels disconnected from itself. AKA The mainland is in the middle of the map, if you don't want to make multiple decked out boats then you have to waste a lot of time circling around the mainland just to get from one side to another, what doesn't help this is as I've said in a comment before the ocean is literally just a bunch of setpieces that barely take up any space, even if they are really good like the Waterlogged biome, look at the huge amounts of bad mainland and cave biomes, especially the empty ones that don't have their own unique turf, aesthetic, loot and how much space they take up compared to once again the Waterlogged biome, I'd much rather a bigger less abundant in quantity biome than 3 setpieces that are really small and in the large ocean take up barely any space. I really think it's time for Klei to revolutionise the way the mainland generates, I think that the mainland needs to be broken up into multiple smaller islands with multiple biomes on each, decently close to eachother so you can still easily cross and with wormholes connecting them if you want to not partake in ocean content, though I don't think it should be a world gen option as I'm tired of suggestions that revolve around world settings, I get it, control over how your world is, that's great, but you could always also have an option for 'classic' generation that we've essentially had since 2013.

Lack of seasonal changes to the ocean. Klei can do a lot of stuff with this, yet we're 4 years since the introduction of the ocean and there's still no unique events on the ocean depending on the season.

Pirates. Please just rework them to be fun to fight on a boat, I don't enjoy being stunlocked every time I can't just repel them or bribe them off with a cannon or banana respectively, I don't enjoy tanking and it's really annoying to be forced into doing it just because of the attack patterns of the powder monkeys.

[maxwell_winters]

The ocean needs small islands with already existing resources instead of sea stacks. With things that are kinda rare to obtain on the mainland. Certain setpieces can be reworked into islands. Like a Tallfort island, a Spider Quarry island, a guaranteed island with extra McTusks etc.

[bloopah]

1 minute ago, maxwell_winters said:

The ocean needs small islands with already existing resources instead of sea stacks. With things that are kinda rare to obtain on the mainland. Certain setpieces can be reworked into islands. Like a Tallfort island, a Spider Quarry island, a guaranteed island with extra McTusks etc.

Maybe even a island north of the map that has MacTusks all-year round except Winter, to imply that they come from that island to the mainland to hunt during that time.

[Just Mactusk]

We mactusk like to take a trip to scotland as well, but living in the constant doesn't sound too shabby 

[goodguythatguy]

44 minutes ago, bloopah said:

Maybe even a island north of the map that has MacTusks all-year round except Winter, to imply that they come from that island to the mainland to hunt during that time.

The MacTusks wear clothes, have indoor lighting and keep pets... they seem intelligent. They must have a whole City somewhere. 

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, bloopah said:

Maybe even a island north of the map that has MacTusks all-year round except Winter, to imply that they come from that island to the mainland to hunt during that time.

Wouldn't be a fan of this one as it just serves to make winter less special and would much rather just have a new islander mob or a variant of some other non season exclusive mob instead.

[bloopah]

21 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Wouldn't be a fan of this one as it just serves to make winter less special and would much rather just have a new islander mob or a variant of some other non season exclusive mob instead.

Maybe other members of the hunchback walrus family, then?

[zVince]

I think the ocean in Don't Starve Together is still very unfinished. I feel it lacks life, vegetation, and mechanics. There's still a lot missing to make the experience enjoyable.

 

[Uncrushed]

This could be about 6 different threads.

Knobbly Nuts, Knobby Trees, and Above Average Tree Trunks

Quote

Infinite smoldering protector that takes nothing after setting up and has a fairly massive radius thats one forest lake away from being super convenient for base protection, disregarding any thought of just, basing a little close to shore. They're a pretty decent chunk of my later game base building.

Playing as Wolfgang I was determined to base on the surface instead of the caves where I usually hide in summer.  Above Average Tree Trunks not only made it possible, they made it great!  They also eliminate Overheating and decrease Wetness!  I never liked basing in the Oasis.  Now I have a superior alternative!

Sea Strider nests are the reason I build a fire staff.  I hadn't viewed them as free meat before this thread.

The Waterlogged biome feels a little hard to navigate.  Do you just plow into the knobbly trees willy-nilly?  What is it that aggros the grass gators?  How do you fight them?

Moon Quay

Quote

I love storming the place when its night and thus none of the monkeys are even out to get at me, docks are INSANE and cannons for marble farming aren't far behind

Ohh, storm-at-night is a great tip!  I've been using rooks for marble farming, but should try cannons.

Quote

barnacles and how you can absolutely abuse them

Details please!

Quote

Once I got all the Monkey Huts Walled in, and built a 3 Wall, 1 Door Powdercake/Banana Lure Structure near the Portal, the Biome became a lot nicer to visit. The Monkeys pop out of the Portal and, for the most part, automatically target the Powdercake/Banana Lure Structure and leave me alone.

I was planning to try walling things in, but the Incredible Inedible addition sounds like a great idea!  Would love a picture of your setup.

Pirates

I'm terrified of pirate monkey raids, but love the Captain's Tricorn.  Terrified is appropriate in a horror-based game.

If you bring bananas, they leave you alone.  I don't know the exact mechanics of how many bananas and where to put them.  Also, if you bring bananas, you won't be stuck on Moon Quay for a week waiting for them to ripen so you can get all your trinkets removed.

Quote

Allow pirates to be neutral to you if you fly their flag/sail

Love this!  There should be something special about sailing a captured pirate ship besides bragging rights.

I've built docks from both sides to bridge Moon Quay and the Mainland.  Then I park a boat there to paddle across the gap quickly and quietly, hopefully before pirates find me.

Wonky

I think Wonky has a lot of unrealized potential.  If:

• his run speed was faster and
• it was easier to find Moon Quay and
• I thought I could make it there without being killed by pirates

I'd totally try to transform into Wonky on day 1 or 2 for faster world exploration and worry about transforming back later.  I'd be willing to trade his ability to equip chest-slot items (to increase the trinket inventory space penalty) for this to become a viable play style.

Lunar Island

I now try to always bring 10-20 grass to transplant to lunar island.  That way you can never get stuck there.

I wouldn't mind there being a sinkhole on Lunar Island.  Possibly from the Lunar Grotto?

Wow, this place is kind of Maxwell's Achilles Heel.

Boats

Quote

A fully decked out boat is a MASSIVE Resource sink & it can end up destroyed very easily by any number of things

1. Tree Jam is way better than boat patches
2. A Captain's Tricorn reduces the durability loss rate of the Boat the player is on by half and reduces collision damage by half
3. An ice staff to extinguish fires isn't a bad idea to bring along (or freeze pellets for Walter).

Quote

Try not to spend so much time preparing a decked out boat with a boat equipment, you don't really need much outside of a boat and an oar!

The grass raft is very underrated.  Every time I see a piece of driftwood (for an oar) I'm tempted to make a raft and paddle away!  Every time I see a message in a bottle, I make a raft on the spot to grab it.  They don't seem to spawn in the first few days though.

Boat Bumpers
I haven't used them much because of the expense/benefit ratio (Pearl's Island and dredging doesn't give quite enough shell fragments to make a complete set).  HOWEVER, it's really useful to have unused space at the edge of your boat so you can easily run around it for rowing, fishing, fighting, etc..  I think if you place the bumpers first, they might preserve the right amount of space for this?  More experimentation is needed.

Malbatross Bill
Totally awesome oar.  I sorely regret that I didn't know to use the Pirate's Bandana to double its life.  I'd still flip to the Captain's Tricorn when boat damage was likely.

Poly Roger's Hat

I see potential here, but kind of prefer the Captain's Tricorn at this point as I like to sometimes not have a totally stuffed inventory.  I may just be bitter from growing a pumpkin to build a scarecrow to catch a yellow bird to cage in the caves to wait for it to get sick, to take back to the surface to free in a forest to get a freakin' yellow feather to build this thing!  And then still wanting to get ambushed by pirates again to get a Captain's Tricorn back?  It left a bad taste.

Boat Base
You can fit several crock pots, Fridge, Salt Box, Tin Fishin' Bin, Lightning Rod, Scaled Furnace, Mush Light, and a ton of Scaled Chests on a single boat.  Simpler items work earlier in the game.  All that traveling-back-to-base is mostly eliminated.  Move it around and plug it into "V" shapes in landmasses where you build larger bases with drying racks and such.  I've built a 2nd boat base just for summer with an endothermic fire pit, but I often just hide in the caves or under an Above Average Tree!

Nautopilot and Bigger Boats
I'd love to see a better way to fix 2 boats together as one, or to just craft a bigger boat like a square-rigger or something.

The problem with Nautopilot is the way the 2nd boat crashes into the first if you aren't incredibly careful.  Sorry I didn't quote whoever said this already. 

The Nautopilot carousel is incredibly clever and cool.  I love that something in this game approaches automation.  I dubious about it being worth the effort.

Fishing

Don't give me a different lure and hook for every time of day and an annoying sequence of tackle boxes to litter my boat deck!  I only need the Stupifying Lure and Rainy-Day Lure.  I want the Stupifying Lure advert, but can keep trading empty bottles to Pearl if I have to.

I'll use a better float when it's given to me, but the Hardened Rubber Bung is so easy to come across that it's my go-to.  I'll craft a Hardened Slip Bobber from a piece of driftwood oar if nothing better is available.

The Tin Fishin' Bin makes fishing much more practical as it not only preserves, but rejuvenates fish and wobsters!

Sunken chests

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Sunken chests in of themselves have decent loot that is absolutely worth running around for, whether it be early on for canes

Wait, what?  You can find a walking cane in a sunken chest?  I have a thread where I've been moaning about the difficulty of getting a cane for months.  The chance is small, but still...

Salt Box

I just needed to shout out that this is great, at least until you get bundling wrap, but still really good after.  Playing solo Wurt, I'd take this over a crock pot!

Best Characters for Boating

Wolfgang gets mighty from rowing and rows faster when mighty.  He tears up Rockjaws and whatnot.

Cookie Cutters, Malbatross and even Rockjaws are easy as Walter with his slingshot (marble ammo is most appropriate).  Cutters are also easy as Wanda.

Not impressed that Wormwood can harvest barnicles without drawing aggro.  Just bring a razor and do it at night.

Other Ideas

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DST actually had a “Creative Mode” like Minecraft

Great idea.  Especially if you can save the maps to play by yourself or with others!  The possibilities are endless.  Warcraft 2 did this and there are some great user-generated scenarios.

Ocean currents mod - Love it - I'll have to try it!

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I think either a cutlass that when used on a boat pushes mobs back on hit to help make more room, or adding the bramble vest retaliate damage to the cutter cap to punish enemies glomping

Intriguing.  The Cookie Cutter Cap feels like it should be better.